Monday’s Prayer, by Lilian Helen Montagu (1895)

Contributor(s): Lilian Helen Montagu and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Shared on: 9 May 2023 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories: Monday

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Jewish Women's Prayers, Monday, teḥinot in English, תחינות teḥinot, West Central Girls' Club

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Monday’s prayer.
	Almighty Father,— Help me, through all my life, to do my duty, so that I may never be ashamed or despair. Let me never forget that on me, as a girl, depends, to a great extent, the happiness of my home.
	Help me to be cheerful, obliging, gentle, truthful, and loving with my parents. Let me never forget how much I owe to them, how much they have suffered and sacrificed for my sake; let my love for them, and desire to help them as much as I possibly can, become stronger as I grow older.
	Increase my influence over my brothers; grant that I may carry out my resolution to learn about subjects which interest them, so that they may not find their home dull, and seek sympathy elsewhere. May the thought of my purity and truthfulness help them to lead pure and true lives!
	Make me, O God, a good sister to my sisters! Show me how I can serve those who are older than I; may I be able to guide and uphold the younger ones!
	For all this, O Lord, do Thou give me strength and power. As I grow older help me to understand more and more thoroughly, that a woman’s greatest glory is the brightness and purity of the home to which she belongs!
	Our daughters shall be as corner-stones hewn after the fashion of a temple. (Psalms 144:12)

“Monday’s Prayer” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 11-12.

Source(s)

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Monday’s Prayer, by Lilian Helen Montagu (1895)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Lilian Helen Montagu

The Hon. Lilian Helen "Lily" Montagu, CBE (22 December 1873 – 22 January 1963) was the first woman to play a major role in Progressive Judaism. Until the age of 15, she was educated at Doreck College, and privately educated thereafter. In 1893 she founded with Emily Marion Harris the West Central Jewish Girls Club (which subsequently merged into the Jewish Girls' Brigade). She was active in social improvement, particularly in respect to unemployment, sweat shops and bad housing. In 1901 and 1902, Montagu laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Jewish Religious Union in London. In February 1902 she arranged the first meeting of the Jewish Religious Union for the Advancement of Liberal Judaism at her sister Henrietta Franklin's house. The Union set up the first synagogue in Liberal Judaism in the UK and helped found the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Montagu was a founding member with her sister of the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage. She sat on the executive committee and led the meetings in prayer. Following the retirement of Leo Baeck, Montagu served for a brief stint (1955–1959) in her 80s as president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, before handing the reins over to Solomon Freehof.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=50709

Associated Image:

monday’s prayer (Lilian H. Montagu 1895) – cropped

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in category pages and in shared links on social media.)

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Lilian Helen Montagu and Aharon N. Varady (transcription).
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=50709>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

Pocket Reddit Facebook Bluesky Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email